God's Song

It is said that humans only reveal 5% of their DNA. The person you perceive yourself to be and the person others judge you for is determined by this 5%. No one can know what is in the hidden 95%.

Put simply, it would be as if our parents gave us a total of 100 cards when they gave us life – of which only 5 can be used. They don’t know which cards they’ll be handing down, but that’s not the real issue. The bigger problem is that of the 100 random cards, we can’t even choose which of the 5 we get to use. We have to pick them with our eyes closed.

Now imagine each of these cards represents a different trait – maybe an attractive face, an intelligent mind, a great body, a handicap. A lucky person who might have been fated with a prized card would be able to use it as a weapon to speed through life with considerable ease. And then there are also the ill-fated who end up with a torn or useless card. Maybe all five cards are duds. But that is what we have to use to our advantage or disadvantage until we die.

The dictionary definition of absolute pitch is as goes.

Absolute Pitch: The ability to hear any musical note and, without a reference tone, recognize its pitch.

Absolute pitch is said to be a natural gift – something you are born with. But then there are some say that it is possible to acquire it with enough training. That it is more of a talent than a gift. But imagine being blessed with the gift of absolute pitch and enhancing an already impressive feat with another other talent. How extraordinary would that be?

The ability to extract the pitch from all sounds heard by the ear – the revving of a motorcycle exhaust, a frog croaking in the countryside on a cool summer night, the rattling of a subway into a platform, the sound of raindrops on the roof of a car – or to hear them as a beautiful melody in and of itself is indeed a gift from God.

But this is true only if that person realizes that the sounds he hears is music and not merely noise.

Of the 10 contemporary musicians chosen by New York’s Metropolitan Museum to represent the 20th century, there is a South Korean who is a native of Sancheong and captain of Tongyoung – Mr. Yoon Yi Sang. He was born with such a gift.

He has said that the tranquil landscape and sea of Tongyoung he constantly yearned for are nestled in his music. A German couple who so loved Mr. Yoon Yi Sang’s music said they traveled all the way to Tongyoung in order to feel his music on a deeper level.

And that German couple further said the moment they saw the sea in Tongyoung, they knew that it was the same sea they imagined while listening to Mr. Yoon Yi Sang’s music. The music had expressed a natural landscape as if a picture had been taken.

Let us look at an incident from his childhood.

‘When Spring comes and the paddy fills with water, it is filled with frogs. The sound of the frogs every night was very noisy but to me, it didn’t sound like whining. Instead it was more like an artistic chorus composed of different voices.

When one frog starts crying, another sound matches that and responds, and if a third joins, suddenly a chorus of trebles, mids, and bass start in concert, and again suddenly fall silent.’

This is what is archived in Mr. Yoon Yi Sang’s memorial in Tongyoung.

Hopefully, the readers who will see these words will not misunderstand. The purpose is not to write a biography about a man who has already passed away. Truthfully, I don’t know much about the deceased man. I have never even heard his music. As someone who is used to pop music, difficult contemporary music is still an uncomfortable noise for me.

Going forward, I will tell the story of one young musician who appeared suddenly. He left humanity with music so beautiful it was like a gift from God. The young genius was associated with impressive modifiers of the 21st century such as Mozart, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Chopin, and Quincy Jones, and was respected by the world.

This is a record of his music and the music empire that he built.